Report from World University Match Racing

The World University Match Racing Championships held in early July, boasted a high standard, with 6 teams ranked inside the top 100 men’s Match Racing list. Two British teams attended skippered by Robbie Allam and Matt Greenfield.

The event was structured to give the most amount of racing for the competitors, and the most amount of work for the officials and umpires who struggled but succeeded to fit in all the races. The schedule had competitors on the water by
10am
/>each day and racing wouldn’t finish until
6:00pm
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The first day was spent with the first stage, a round robin. Unfortunately Allam and didn’t have a strong day on the water and finished the day with only 1 win each. All the sailors where finding the boats hard to sail with and even harder to match race in. The Bolt 23’s that where provided where being asked to give more than they could in terms of performance, for example tacking (even perfectly) could loose you as much as 5 boat lengths.

After completion of the second day and the rest of the races in the first round, and his team found themselves in 6^th place with a confirmed entry in the Semi-finals. Their second’s day performance had been largely due to finding the set up and handling that the boats required to be competitive. Unfortunately Allam didn’t qualify for the semi finals after the teams had struggled with the boats and the unconventional match racing skills they needed. Allam and his team finished 11^th.

With the third and fourth round matches the skippers started to equalise on speed and the matches where finished on less and less of a lead. Nearly all boats had recognised the faster sailing style that and other teams had discovered and matches started to get even tougher as a result.

After a day outside the harbour in large chop and winds up to 20kts the next day was spent inside on flat water and gusty winds. lost his Semi-final match and now found himself with a 7^th 8^th match against the French team skippered by Heintz.

Allam, after thinking he was knocked out of the event after the first round, discovered he was required to race in a play-off for the last few places of the event. Unfortunately this amendment to the programme was posted first thing in the morning after Allam and his team had just taken the other ‘knocked out’ teams to for a night out and had returned at
8:00am
/>.

While the Germans and the Greeks where unaware of the extra matches, and slept on, the Italians, Swiss and Allam somehow managed to sail all the morning before being joined by the now woken teams to complete the round. Despite the extra racing the final positions where hardly altered and Allam’s team finished in 11^th as they had after the round robin.

The committee tried to hold the finals inside the harbour as most teams had requested, but the wind forced the event outside and back to choppy seas and unconventional conservative match racing skills. ‘s team found a great turn of speed and won their best of three in the first two matches, finishing the second match almost a leg ahead. They finished the event in 7^th place.

Full results:

(ohotos in the gallery)

By Niall Myant

Two GBR match racing teams selected by the British Universities Sailing Association (BUSA) will be heading to Gdansk, Poland for the fourth FISU World University Match Racing Championship being held from 1 ? 6 July. 

Matt Greenfield leads GBR 1 with his crew, from Bath University, Ed Atkins, Mark Stockbridge and Toby Yeasby.  GBR 2 is lead by skipper Robbie Allam (Cardiff University), with his crew, Adam Richards (Sheffield University), Stephen Powell and Jez Fowke (Exeter University).

Sailing will be tough with teams from Italy, Greece, Germany, Poland (2), Switzerland, France, New Zealand (2), Australia and USA also competing. GBR last won this event in 2002, when Mark Campbell-James led his team to victory in France. In 2003 Ali Hall came third after finding stiff competition against the winning Swedish team and home team, the Italians. Reigning Champions Australia will be keen to defend their title from 2006, when the last GBR team, Jon Pinner, came 5th in Spain.

Matt Greenfield said: “We are very excited and feel extremely privileged to have been selected to represent Great Britain at the FISU World University Match Racing Championships in Poland.  We have worked with Team Bath’s sports development coaches including fitness instructors, sports psychologists and nutritional advisors and combined with coaching provided by the Volvo RYA Keelboat Programme, we feel that we are ready for the challenge in Poland.” 

Robbie Allam said: “We’re all very much looking forward to the Worlds; we’ve targeted it as the event we want to win this year and with this in mind are competing in an event a few days before the worlds in similar boats. Back home training’s been limited because of exams, but we’ve had a day in Parkstone Sailing Club in J24’s and I’ve done a day doing pit/bow for Andy Green training against Ian Williams which helped lot learning off the best.”

BUSA wish them both the best of luck, and look forward to the results.

http://www.matchracing2008.awf.gda.pl/